One of the most frustrating aspects of the game of golf, is putting, and missing, and having to putt again, and perhaps again, from closer or further from the golf hole than the initial stroke. Many a male has lost his cool when teaching putting to a student-wife or girlfriend. Many tools have been developed over the years to improve the putter's score by reducing the number of strokes necessary to complete the hole.
Early tools developed were generally U shaped channels that fit partway around a golf hole, and gave the putter a target to aim for. But these could also be detrimental to the putter if the ball hit the device on its outer edge causing the ball to deflect away from the hole. See U.S. Design 155,370 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,459,559, both of R. E. Watkins.
A horseshoe shaped recent device that surrounds the hole is found in the Burkholder U.S. Pat. No. 6,800,034. This device helps get the ball into the cup once the golfer hits the ball. But the device in no way influences the ball movement. Once within the bounds of the Burkholder device, the ball will go into the cup. But is has to get into the confines of the device in the first place to do so. It is also possible, that the shot if too forceful, could skip over the top of the curved wall of the Burkholder device, to again create frustration for the golfer.
Tony Falco created a flexible chain device in his U.S. Pat. No. 6,183,373 that arcs around a hole in the hope that the ball is diverted within the confines of the area defined by the two markers on the ends of the flexible chain, will go into the hole within the area, and not jump over the chain, be the chain plastic or heavy metal.
Yet another device to aid the putter is the folding golf too of Lynch, U.S. Pat. No. 8,192,294. This device resembles a folding carpenter's ruler with a flag at the center of the device to mark the hole.
Other training aid patents include O'Neil, Design 345,842, Yamaguchie at al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,310,187, a device placed in front of the hole and Potter U.S. Pat. No. 6,923,730 who operates a caliper type device in U.S. Pat. No. 6,923,730 among a whole bunch of others.
These devices fail to naturally influence the trajectory of the moving ball, and none of the devices have the ability to define a separate game that can be used by young and old alike, or newbie or experienced golfer.